Small mobile communication appliances for telecommunications services which can be operated by nonspecialists have already become known in widely different embodiments, and in which context attempts have also already been made to develop universal appliances (in this context see, for example, WO 98/15964). That is to say, attempts have been made to design a control unit such that it is suitable not only for remote control of an appliance, that is to say of a television, radio, computer, telephone or the like, but such that one appliance can be used to operate a large number of widely differing electronic appliances. In this case, as before, the control actions are rather cumbersome and, in particular, the acquisition of data for entering in the appliance is relatively cumbersome and requires a complex input keypad.
One subarea of the detection and storage of personal state data can be provided by an appliance as has been proposed in DE 196 37 383 A1. In this case, a person's state is detected by sensors and is evaluated via an evaluation unit in order to assess the situation relating to this person in comparison to his or her normal daily cycle, taking into account other data, such as the time and the location. If no typical data is available, the person can be reminded by the apparatus, and/or an alarm can be triggered. This arrangement also allows only the detection of the parameters which are monitored from the start by appropriate sensors, but does not allow any communication going beyond this with external third parties, nor does it allow the detection of measurement sensors which are not connected to the system.